Recent Golden Globe-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón has been nothing but complimentary about his “Roma” distributor, Netflix. He has voiced his gratitude that the streaming service released his deeply personal film on a number of occasions. However, his most recent comments about Netflix aren’t so friendly. The filmmaker has a problem with how the service subtitled his Spanish-language film.
Right off the bat, it’s important to say that these subtitles are only affecting those watching the film in Spain. However, considering that the folks in Spain speak Spanish, albeit with their own dialect, Cuarón feels that the streaming service should have kept the subtitles from the original Spanish-language release, instead of changing it to Iberian Spanish.
“I think it’s very offensive to the Spanish public that they’ve given Roma Iberian Spanish subtitles,” the director said to the Spanish outlet Efe (via the Guardian)
He continued talking about the issue with the outlet El País, “It’s parochial, ignorant and offensive to Spaniards themselves. One of the things I most enjoy is the color and texture of other accents.”
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The change to Iberian Spanish subtitles wasn’t noticed only by Cuarón. Mexican author Jordi Soler went on Twitter to voice his frustration, tweeting, “To top it all off when they say ‘mamá’ [mum], the subtitles say ‘madre’ [mother].”
Obviously, Netflix doesn’t want to upset Cuarón, as “Roma” looks to be the first solid Oscar contender that the streaming service has ever had. It’ll be interesting to see if they make a comment on the subtitle issue or if they keep it as is. However, if they don’t do anything about it, it’s safe to say that the filmmaker isn’t going to let this issue fade away anytime soon.
No es para entender los diálogos, que no hace falta, es para colonizarlos; por ejemplo, cuando dicen "ustedes" subtitulan "vosotros", cuando dicen "son" subtitulan "sois", cuando dicen "mamá" subtitulan (el colmo del ridículo) "madre" https://t.co/WIAvshyazg
— Jordi Soler (@jsolerescritor) December 16, 2018
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